There's Banging Outside My House
by Ben is Glory
Summary: When a new demon hits Sunnydale, the Scoobies are shaken up, creating interesting ships. Old friends return. R in later chapters. BANGING AND RILEY LOOKING LIKE AN IDIOT! (well, there's nothing new...)
1. Chapter One

TITLE: There's Banging Outside My House  
AUTHOR: Ben is Glory  
PAIRING: Buffy/Riley, Tara/Willow  
RATING: R in later chapters  
SPOILERS: Set before "Into the Woods"  
DISCLAIMER: Mega props to "The Man" Joss Whedon  
FEEDBACK: We'd love it. Send to: XBen_is_Glory@yahoo.com

It was a warm summer day. Willow and Tara had stopped by the Magic Box to help Anya and Giles while Riley, Buffy and Dawn were at the amusement park. Business was slow, so Tara and Will sat around researching the latest demon to hit Sunnydale.

"His name is Mequilera. He's the mutt of a demon. Like Adam, with lots of different characteristics." stated Willow. "He was assembled in the 1680's but was killed around four years later. I guess somebody must have re-assembled him."

"Does he have any special powers?" asked Tara.

"Yeah, he can breathe fire and has sharp buzz saw thingies for hands."

"Oh, I think I know him!" said Anya. "He cheated on his girlfriend once so she wished that he…"

"OK," interrupted Giles. "What else does it say? Anything about what he's attracted to or how to kill him?"

"He goes after babies and elderly. Things that can't defend themselves."

"So he feeds on them?" wondered Tara.

Willow continued reading from the book, "He kills and then drains the blood. That's his vampire trait. It doesn't say how to kill him although I assume we have to dismember him. I'll keep looking."

Just then, Xander walked in after a long day at the construction site. "Hey guys! Whoa, what's the what? Why the long faces?"

"We're fighting an Adam wannabe." answered Tara.

"One that I possibly cursed!" Anya exclaimed proudly.

Xander gave her a smile and a kiss on the forehead. "So what's the big deal? We call Buffy, Scoobies assemble. Job well done."

"Well, the problem is, we don't know how to kill him yet." explained Willow.

"Hopefully we won't have to do another spell like we did for Adam." Giles said blandly.

"But we did good!" Xander shot back.

"Yes, but we almost did not complete it in time. And spells like that can have serious consequences." retorted Giles.

The door popped open and Dawn peeked in. "We're back!"

"How was the park?" asked Tara.

"Too much cotton candy," said Riley walking in the door with his hand on his stomach. "I should have stopped after four."

"I told you the fifth one would catch up with you!" exclaimed Buffy as she strolled through the door. "So what's the sitch? Store seems pretty quiet."

"Unusually quiet," Giles replied. "We've hardly had a customer all day. I can't figure it out."

"Maybe Bob's Magic Emporium is having a sale?" joked Buffy.

"Whatever it is we haven't got time for it. Willow found out about that demon Spike saw last night on patrol."

"I hope you bag it tonight. I am not letting a mutt demon get in the way of me making money!" cried Anya.

"A what demon?" Buffy asked, confused.

"Like a dog," explained Willow. "You know, a mix of different types of dogs. This is a mix of different kinds of demons." Willow showed Buffy the picture of Mequilera.

"That's him?" He had six inch horns, fangs, a big muscular body complete with two arms. One arm had a buzz saw attached to it and the other was a machine gun. It had thick legs with talons and scales. It looked like it weighed about 400 pounds. "Well, I'm always up for a challenge."

"Now Buffy, we don't know how to kill this thing. I don't want you on patrol until we find out," Giles stated.

"Then who will?" inquired Dawn.

"We could always send Spike. Nobody cares if he gets toasted, right?" polled Xander.

"Spike is a possibility," Tara agreed.

"With that chip in his head, I bet he's dieing for a little violence." pointed out Anya.

"So it's settled. Spike patrols and I get a fun filled vacation in Research Land."

"Just until we find out how to kill it. Then you can hit the streets and patrol again," responded Giles.

"Alright. If you guys don't need me then, I'm going to go find our lucky contestant and tell him what he's won." With that, Buffy was out the door and on her way to Spike's crypt.

*************************************

By the time she got to Spike's, the sun had begun to set. _He should be getting up soon, _Buffy thought. But she had no qualms about waking him up a little early.

"Bloody hell!" Spike yelled as Buffy burst through his door. She walked in and closed the door so as not to set the half asleep vamp on fire. _Not that anybody would miss him._ She hesitated as the thought lingered in her head. _If it wasn't for that damn demon, he'd be dustville._

"Slayer, why am I not surprised?"

"Spike, why am I not repulsed? Oh wait, I am," she replied with a grin.

"Is that what you've come for? A cheap shot at me before nightfall? I must say, I think you're losing your touch."

"Actually, I've come to talk business. You know that buzz saw guy you found last night? Seems like he's worse than we thought. Giles wants me off duty until we find out more about him. Guess what that means?"

"Means you'll be leaving soon?" he tried as he lit a cigarette.

"It means while we're researching, you'll be patrolling."

"Oh yeah? What git gave me that job? Just because the Big Bad is a little bigger and badder that we thought you get to slack off while I could potentially get killed?"

"We would only be so lucky. Oh, look at the time. Gotta fly. Giles hates it when I'm late, they'll start the meeting without me!" she said, overflowing with sarcasm.

"Sod off!" Spike replied angrily.

"Have fun tonight, don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Buffy turned and walked down back through the cemetery. She brimmed with the satisfaction of knowing she could annoy Spike like nobody else.


	2. Chapter Two

TITLE: There's Banging Outside My House  
AUTHOR: Ben is Glory  
PAIRING: B/R, T/W, R/T  
RATING: R in later chapters  
SPOILERS: Set before "Into the Woods"  
DISCLAIMER: Mega props to "The Man" Joss Whedon  
FEEDBACK: We'd love it. Send to: XBen_is_Glory@yahoo.com

When she reached the magic shop, everybody was sitting around the big table, books in hand.

"How's the research going?" Buffy asked.

"Let's put it this way," Xander explained, "if we were looking for nothing, we'd have found it by now."

"That bad, huh?" asked Buffy, obviously disappointed.

"Yeah, I think nothing pretty much covered it," said Riley. He scooted over to make room at the table for Buffy. As she sat down, he put his arm around her for comfort. He could tell she was bummed and all he wanted to do was make her feel better. She was, after all, his girl.

"Well," started Willow, "I'm taking everything on relocation spells, suspension spells, and, what the heck, spells to make him really sleepy, because, slightly better if all we've read about him is true."

"You can never be sure. Some demons like to talk themselves up, make them look better than they actually are. You know, I can kill this, I beat up that. I can eat 500 pigs in three minutes. Met a couple of them in my day. They remind me of modern day football players, actually." offered Anya. "All I'm saying is don't get too wigged. Some demons talk a lot of hype. Remember Gachnar?" Anya replied quickly off of confused looks.

"Well, yes. But I just didn't see that it said he was three inches tall. Even so, I still think that you shouldn't patrol, Buffy. Is Spike going to patrol?" Giles asked.

"I guess. I told him we needed him. But that doesn't mean much to Spike unless you back it up with green paper." Buffy paused for a yawn and looked at her watch. Only 10 pm, but she was exhausted. "Um, it's getting late. I better get Dawn home. Will you guys be alright without me?"

"We'll be fine. We might have to pull an all-nighter but no big," answered Willow.

"All night? As in no sleep, reading these books until morning?" Xander didn't sound interested.

"You can go home too, Captain Whiney," replied Will, slightly annoyed.

"It's just… work, tomorrow. Gotta make money to keep An happy."

"OK, OK. Just go!" everyone shouted in unison.

"Alright, alright. I'm gone. Come on, honey. I can tell when I'm not wanted!" Xander exclaimed as he hurried out the door.

"Let's go, Dawn," said Buffy.

"Do you want me to go with you?" asked Riley hopefully.

"That's OK."

"Bye everybody!" Dawn cried as she left with her sister.

"Right," Riley muttered under his breath. _Why do I even try anymore? It's obvious she doesn't love me. Maybe I should move on…_

His thought was interrupted by Tara suddenly shouting, "Oh! I think I found something!"

"What does it say?" asked Giles.

"We need an Orb of Ydarg. It is suppose to weaken the demon's central power source. If we could get one, we could hold it on to him and then Buffy can dismember him."

"Do we have one of those?" asked Will.

"Yes, down in the basement," answered Giles.

"I'll go look for it and you guys can work on a way to corner Mequilera without us ending up dead," said Tara as she headed to the stairs to the basement.

************************************

Tara was in the basement of the Magic Box looking for the Orb of Ydarg when she heard someone coming down the stairs.

"W-w-who's there?" she called out.

"It's just me." replied Riley as he reached the bottom. "I came to see how you were doing. You've been gone a long time; we were getting worried."

"How's the plan of action?" she asked, still seaching.

"Fine. They're still working out the details," he said moving closer to her. Until now, he had never noticed how beautiful she was. Her blonde hair that fell just below her shoulders; her penetrating blue eyes. Her full lips he was suddenly dieing to kiss. _Stop! Stop thinking those things! You're in love with Buffy and Tara is in love with Willow. She could never love you, _Riley thought.

"Are you OK?" Tara could tell something was wrong.

"Uh… yeah. I'm fine."

_Why is he so quiet? And why is he standing so close to me? Oh god no, he couldn't be. There is no way he's attracted to me. He loves Buffy._

"Tara?"

"Oh, um… y-yes?" she stammered.

"I, well… nothing. You just spaced out for a sec." _God I want her. No, I can't have her. I have Buffy. It's not like Buffy would notice, though. She was too wrapped up in everything else to pay attention to him. But Tara, she always cared about everyone. How can I make her mine?_

Ok, this is really freaking me out. How could he possibly feel this way? For me, now. Why? She began to feel more uncomfortable as Riley stepped closer to her. She turned to face him and was unexpectedly met with a kiss.


	3. Chapter Three

TITLE: There's Banging Outside My House  
AUTHOR: Ben is Glory  
PAIRING: B/R, T/W, R/T  
RATING: R  
TIMELINE: Set before "Into the Woods"  
DISCLAIMER: Everything is ME and Joss. And "but face" is from _A New Man_, I gave the credit so don't sue me!

THANKS: Thankies to Ann who helped me with my writer's cramp… or was it block? LOL ;D  
FEEDBACK: Gimme gimme gimme!

"Is everything alright down there?" Giles called down the stairs.

Riley and Tara abruptly broke apart, startled by the interruption. _Wow, that was… intense._ Tara thought.

"Everything's fine, Giles. We just found the Orb," Riley said as he picked it up from a nearby shelf. He walked up the stairs leaving Tara alone and perplexed.

_What the hell was that about? Oh my god, what am I going to tell Willow? Oh, I can't tell her, she'd never forgive me. But if she did something like this I would want her to tell me. Oh goddess, what am I going to do?_

"You coming, Tara?" asked Riley from the doorway. His face wore a devilish grin that made her a little uneasy.

"Um, y-y-yes. I'm coming." She walked up the stairs and went back to her seat next to Willow.

"So, Giles, now that we have the Orb, what do we do with it?" asked Willow.

"I thought you guys were coming up with a plan." Tara flashed a worried look at the shop keeper.

"Well, we ran into one little, erm, _catch_."

"What is it, Giles?" _Please don't say we can't kill him. Please don't say we can't kill him._

"Well, apparently there's not just one demon. Mequilera is only one of an army of demons."

"An army?"

"Yes. I came across a prophecy I had overlooked earlier in the Loxig texts. It said an ancient species of demon was being reborn. Apparently they're after something, the text doesn't say what, but I imagine it's fairly large with the number of demons that have been sent to Sunnydale."

"How many d-d-demons?"

"Upwards of five hundred. There could be as many as one thousand by the end of the week. I assume they will keep coming and coming until they acquire whatever it is they're after. God knows how long that will take, and we have yet to find out what they've come for."

"Does Buffy know?" Riley seemed concerned.

"We didn't bother calling," said Willow. "They probably just got home and Buffy seemed really tired. We figured we'd just tell them tomorrow. Unless they're still up when we get home." She rubbed Tara's back. "You getting tired, baby? You look a little worn out."

"Just a lot of excitement. I'll be fine. The important thing to do now is research. We should find out as much about these things as possible so we can be ready if they show up somewhere."

"She's right," Giles responded.

"You have 'but face,'" Willow pointed out. Off Giles's offended look she continued, "You looked like you were going to say 'but.'"

"But…" Giles started, "but we don't know what kind of demons we're dealing with. Mequilera was manmade and has characteristics that match so many other demons. But no two of his parts are the same."

"That's a comforting thought," Riley put in.

"Indeed," replied Giles.

"Like snowflakes!" cried Willow.

"Right…" said Giles.

"You know, snowflakes! No two snowflakes are supposed to be the same?" she tried. "So, what happened to the rest of the parts?" Willow wondered, obviously not getting anywhere with the snow flake thing.

"That's exactly it. I don't know. It's my guess they were used to make other monsters; the rest of the army. However, we can't be sure. There's no record of any other demons even resembling Mequilera, so until we see one for ourselves, we don't know anything."

"Sounds like group slaying to me," said Tara.

"I would say so. It's not safe enough anymore for just Buffy."

"She can handle herself," Riley cut in. "She's a big girl."  
"We understand that, Riley. But we know virtually nothing about hundreds of demons that are due in any time now. We cannot take the chance that a few hundred will show up while Buffy's out alone on patrol. At this point I don't think I would even let Spike go by himself."

***

"Sodding Slayer. Thinks she can order me around, that I'll do anything she bloody well wants me to. I'll show her." Spike was in the third hour of patrol and too bitter for his own good. It had been a very slow night: one staking an hour in and two a half hour ago. Other than that, he'd been bored out of his mind which gave plenty of time for the anger Buffy had left him with to sink in. "I get this fucking chip out of my head and there's gonna be a visit from William the Bloody. You bet you're damn life there will be." He stopped suddenly when he heard something rustle. "Oh bollocks, here we go."

***

The phone rang and Buffy's eyes shot open. She glanced at the clock. 2 AM. _Who the hell calls at 2 AM?_ She reached beside her and picked up the cordless phone that was sitting on her nightstand. "Hello?" she answered, her voice raspy with sleep.

"Buffy, we need you!" the voice pleaded.

"Willow? What's the matter?" she asked frantically.

"It's Spike…"

-TBC-

***

A/n: I'm trying to work in this deal where Riley has a really annoying fall in every scene. Hopefully, it'll fit in upcoming chapters ^_^ I hope you liked it, Amna =D we have to get to the title seen soon, dude =P


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